How to set up "Planar Brush" stroke constantly

[DarkStar]

Hi there,

try to bevel some spots on an alloy wheel.
So I used just “Bevel Flat” for the spoke.
And that works quite ok.

But now, I want to bevel along a round surf (wheel horn).
In first step I used “Bevel Flat” for a start.
After that I tried to extend that bevel with the “planar brush”.

But for some reason, the brush impact increases in size and depth.
I tried and errored nearly any option in the Brush- & Stroke Options.

Also the horn surf to bevel is in 100% same depht on y-axis,
see here:

I am absolutelly lost, why I can´t just extend the starting Brush stroke
from the Bevel flat.
I dotted the wished bevel contour red.

As second step I would like to transition the horn bevel
to the spokes bevel.
You see that contoure in blue.

May you can give me also a tip how to manage that.
Which tools would you take for that goal?

Thanks alot for your help!

Chris

[zber2]

@DarkStar

1. Looks like you are using “Once Z” in “Picker > Depth”. Use “Cont Z” instead.

2. I would just mask the area I don’t want affected then use smooth brush.

[DarkStar]

Thanks for the fast repply.

Unfortunately the picker is already on Cont Z.
If I switch it to Once Z to see the differende,
there will appear just a single bump, if I use the planar brush.

So the picker was not the problem.
May your, or anybody else have an other idea, what´s the concern here.

I had to break the corner first with the flatten , or hPolish brush
to clean it up later, with the smooth brush.
That work quite well I see,

But expecially the idea to mask it, to not effect other areas
was very helpful. That is so selfexplaining and easy controlable.
Thanks a lot for that tip - very helpful.

I am quite new to ZBrush and have to dive into the software to get know
how to procedure the workflow.

Hopefully there is a simply solution for problem #1 as well.

Thanks again for help!

[DarkStar]

It seems that the problem related to the radial build of the horn,
or say ring.

So to check the planar tool and it´s settings, I load a simple box tool.
When I Bevel flat the edge and extend that bevel with the planar brush
it works like a charm.
That is so clean, fantastic.

So the strange behaviour from using that brush with the horn,
will, in my eyes, relate to the radial form.

Is there anything I have to change, if I will work with the planarbrush
on ringformed bodies?

What is even stranger, is that when I load a cylinder tool,
I can easy use the bevel flat, but the planar brush doesn´t do anything there.
Even when I changed the gizmo to Z axis on the concerned corner.

So is the planar brush usable at round boudies at all?
If yes, what have I to change in the settings, or from the workflow
to use it in a proper way?

Thanks!!!

[zber2]

There are no other settings with the Planar brush that will change that, that I am aware of. Maybe @Spyndel might have an idea or maybe a brush is not the way to go. You might have to delete edge loops then fill the gap so it’s flat or you could try Bevel Pro plugin.

[DarkStar]

Yes, I already watched that tut.
I think that´s very helpful, if you create uniform bevels from clean surfaces.

In my case I imported production data from Catia to ALIAS.
From there I export a dense stl to zbrush for intuitive concept modeling
as modification proposals.

So the startmodel is not realy clean and not nativ polygon.
But as far as I get a nice rendering from substance it´s ok.

For Production data I will use ALIAS anyway.

So I found a workaround for the ring.
I used again the bevelflat but this time with 100 radial counts in symmetrie
and masked just the part of the ring to avoid to touch the outer spoke connection to the ring.

That worked for me.

The transition between the ring and the spoke bevel was more tricky than I thought from 1st attemp.
I get it done, but is more or less kind of shaky.

Had to do with that I wanted a differend size of the two bevels,
so it´s harder to match I nice contoure between both of them.

Additional the unclean and high amount of points make it not easier.

I still don´t know if this idea of the workflow is right.
For #1 it works.
But for #2 I am not sure.

I masked the area for the transition, than I used the Hpolish Trim Dynamic and Polish Brush/ Smoth Brush.

May there´s another one that help for those cases.

[Spyndel]

Hi @DarkStar ,

Planar or Bevel Flat can’t really flatten along a curve. They are designed to create planes.

If you’re looking for a brush-based finesse approach to this, I would recommend using the flatten or TrimDynamic brushes, followed by one of the polish brushes, with Lazy Mouse and the Stroke> LazyMouse> Backtrack/Path option active. This will let you draw out a path first to define it, then apply a stroke back and forth along that path. You can further improve the smoothness of the stroke with other Lazy Mouse options.

Your results will depend on artistic ability here, and may always exhibit a hand-worked quality. I will observe that it looks like you may have some topology that isn’t ideal for sculpting. Evenly distributed quads as close to square shaped as possible will produce the best results. Tris, poles, and non-square quads may become apparent in your surface results.

If you’d like to produce more consistent or deliberate results, I’d recommend the use of Bevel Pro, which will require you to cleanly define polygroups to control the bevel. Your results will again vary with the quality of your topology.

This type of object would also be fairly straightforward to model in low-poly, bevel and all, for a machine-perfect shape.

[DarkStar]

Hey Spyndel,

Ok, that make sense.
I will try first the suggested manual sculping workflow.
That’s the reason I User the software.

Second I will give Bevel Pro a try.
My concern is here, that I lost intuitive and creative workflow.

I came from Alias and start working with Maya for concept modeling.
I like it, but I saw from some tuts that a lot of people uses ZBrush to refine, or model whole hardsurfaces with it.

Goal for me is, to find a workflow, which issn’t static and give me full freedom for creativity.

For this project I use original production data and imported to ZBrush. These are Nurbs surfaces. For that reason I am not able to get a clean startmodel.
I tried ZRemesher but the result issn’t too good, because of the detailed source surfaces.

When I just import the outer rim, ZRemesher did a quite good job.
But the whole wheel with spokes and the centre will be too much to come out right.

When I create some new stylings for presentation I can model a package in Maya and continue with this polygon model in ZBrush.
That make some difference in workflow. I can use ZModeler and also brushes works much better with that clean geometry.

But so or so in the end I have to rebuild it in Alias for production data. I know that I can use ZBrush for 3D Prints. But that’s something different.
The final Alias data goes to construction Departement for mold creation for series of thousends of alloy wheels.

So ZBrush does not need to fullfill that goal.

[Spyndel]

Beveling along a complicated path for machine perfect results is actually pretty complicated for a brush operation. Most approaches to this have traditionally involved controlling and manipulating your topology, as this sort of thing is very easy to do with modeling operations if your topology supports it. Bevel Pro actually represents a big step forward for ZBrush users being able to bevel complicated paths along meshes at medium high resolution that doesn’t require deliberate edge flow–though awkward topology can still negatively impact your results.

I don’t know what form your original mesh is in. In the pictures it looks like it might be an open volume with a jagged open edge at the bottom. If that is the case it will make it difficult to work with.

However, if your mesh is actually a closed volume and the edges are very clean, ZRemesher may be able to do a good job redrawing the topology along the edges where you need it. This would make your task far easier than what you are working with right now. For a relatively simply shape, the “Detect Edges” feature may be able identify the edges and cleanly draw edge loops there that can be creased and beveled. For more complicated shapes, you may be able to get the results that you need by defining polygrpoups as cleanly as you can, and using the “Keep Groups” option.

[Spyndel]

@DarkStar ,

It occurs to me that if your top surface is going to be flat , you can use the procedure Joseph used in the following video to quickly create some beveling in the scenario you are working with.

You can quickly flatten the top of your mesh into a separate polygroup with the Knife brush. Note that you should always check your mesh for integrity (Geometry> Mesh Integrity> Check mesh) issues after a session where you’ve been redrawing the topology with tools like Knife or Live Boolean, fix any issues, and then clean the topology with Zremesher.

Good luck!

[DarkStar]

Hey, that are a lot of informations and they’re sounding very interesting to me.

Thanks a lot therefore.
I think I will go through it step by step and trying to find out, what helps best.

Thanks again for all of your input - very friendly.
: )

All the best
Chris

[DarkStar]

Beside my daily work I figure out the way you suggested Spyndel.

First I cleaned up the model with Z-Remesher and Dynamesh.

Then I used Bevel Pro for the Surfaces to archieve.

Unfortunatelly even if the source surfaces were quite sharp and clean in my point of view,
bevel pro came up with an overall good result, but create some small particels apart the bevels.

So I had to clean that up as well.

Hmm, my experience with bevel pro is therefor so so.

It´s defenetly good to know, that there is an autotool available for these kind of tasks.

In my case, I would like to work somehow more artistic.
Means, I come from ALIAS and Maya, which are quite good in this kind of hardsurface functions.

The idea that let me switch for special tasks to ZBrush was it´s image,
that it lets a lot freedom for it´s creators and should work quite intuitive.

I´m still not reached that status so I continue to scroll that nice Interface up and down to search the right functions and put it in a custom one if I feel it´s useful.

Anyhow, I think it´s worth the headache.

[DarkStar]

For the bevel I would wish I archieve it someday to easily draw for example one bold bevel, than a slim one, on the apart side, which I combine than with a nice transition.

So my goal is to use ZBrush as a kind of 3D Version of former Autodesk Sketchbook.

Unfortunately I still need to figure out which tools I probably should use best for a manually drawn bevel.

So the last stand from above is that I used bevel flat and planar to enlarge the bevel for the whole spoke.

Like you said the planar issn´t made to enlarge bent or curved surfaces.

So which tool would you suggested for that kind of job?

How and which brush would you choose to make a nice and smooth transition in the edges between a large and a small bevel?

See pictures from the beginning of this thread.